


don't take that sinner from me

by lunasenzanotte



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Prison, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Historical, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-19 03:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22337515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunasenzanotte/pseuds/lunasenzanotte
Summary: 17th century Russia. Sascha and Andrey meet in prison. One of them isn’t who he says he is.
Relationships: Alexander Zverev/Andrey Rublev
Comments: 14
Kudos: 17





	don't take that sinner from me

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this because the story wouldn't leave me alone (and this pairing neither). I don't know if I didn't curse myself more with writing it, but well...

The familiar sound of heavy steps and dragging feet on the dirty floors rouses Andrey from his drowse. There’s usually a lot of shouting, too, especially when the new prisoners are drunk. He doesn’t pay it much attention, until the strange group stops right in front of the door of his cell.

The boy they are bringing in is actually taller than the guards, but lanky and pale, so the ropes wrapped around his torso look a bit unnecessary. It’s not hard to guess what brought him here.

“It was just lying there!” the boy screams, at the guards, or God, or no one in particular. “How could I have known it belonged to someone? It was just a pile of branches!”

“Not _your_ pile of branches,” one of the guards growls, taking off the ropes and pushing the boy inside the cell.

“I’m not a thief!”

“Say that when they ask you!” the guard snaps and locks the door. “Because I don’t give a shit!”

The boy huffs in annoyance and turns around. That’s when he actually spots Andrey for the first time, and he makes a step back.

“Leave me alone!” he snaps. “Don’t come near me!”

“I’m just sitting here,” Andrey says calmly. “Do I look like I give a damn about you?”

The boy still eyes him mistrustfully, and then sits in the corner, as far from Andrey as possible, hugging himself.

“So you stole something, right?” Andrey asks.

“No, I didn’t steal anything!” the boy snaps and glares at him. “I’m no thief!”

“If you say so,” Andrey shrugs.

“I just took some wood I found,” the boy says. “It looked like fallen branches, it wasn’t even chopped. I had no idea it was someone’s wood.”

“So you stole it,” Andrey states.

“No, I…” the boy makes a wild gesture. “Whatever. I don’t have to explain this to you.”

“No, you don’t. I actually don’t care.”

He lies back on the straw, looking up at the dark beams holding up the ceiling of the cell. Someone’s scratched some letters into them, and Andrey really wishes he could read, because if someone climbed the walls of the cell to scratch it in there, it has to be something important. The names, lousy pictures and lines that are supposed to keep track of time, they are all scratched into the walls.

“What are you here for?” the boy asks when Andrey ignores him for too long.

Andrey lifts his head, pushing himself up on one elbow, and looks at him. He’s curled up in the corner, shivering slightly. He’s wearing only a _kosovorotka_ , torn on one shoulder. Too light for this time of the year, and too light for the humid coldness of this cell. But something tells Andrey that cold isn’t the only reason why he’s shaking.

“Me?” he asks. “Well, I… took something that wasn’t mine for the taking.”

“So you’re a thief,” the boy scoffs. “How long have you been here?”

“I don’t know,” Andrey says and lies back on the straw. “I’m not counting.”

The boy falls silent then. Andrey goes back to staring at the letters that make no sense to him, until the last rays of daylight disappear and cover the cell with a veil of blue darkness. The guards light two torches outside the cells, to help them see at their cards and chess during their night watch.

Right after the torches are lit, the guard pushes two bowls with food through the bars, not even bothering to unlock the door. Andrey gets up from his straw nest and grabs his bowl. The boy doesn’t move from his corner until Andrey is in a safe distance from him again. Then he pokes the bowl mistrustfully.

“What is this?” he asks with a disgusted face.

“If you don’t want it, I’ll take it,” Andrey says. “You can wait for Sunday, there’s meat on Sunday. And tea. Sundays are a feast.”

The boy shakes his head wildly, his fair hair flying around like liquid gold. “I won’t be here on Sunday anymore,” he says nonchalantly, pushing his bowl closer to Andrey.

“So you really don’t want this?” Andrey assures himself. He won’t say no to extra food, but then, taking it from a boy who is apparently a complete fool seems a little unfair to him.

“No.”

“Good for me,” Andrey says and pulls the bowl to him. He still waits a moment, just in case the boy changes his mind, before devouring the plain, cold porridge.

The boy gives him a disgusted look.

The cell gets quiet, with the voices from the yard slowly dying out, and the guards sitting down for their game of cards. Andrey shoots a glance in the corner. It’s strange to share the cell with someone. He’s been alone here for too long. He’s even taken solace in the loneliness.

Turning his back to the boy, he gets on his knees. From this spot, this angle, he can only see the dark sky and bright moon. He gets lost in the prayer after a while. He’s never known that feeling before, the strange trance when his mind is not really here, but everywhere and nowhere at the same time. That strange feeling of his body not belonging to him, forgetting the weariness in his bones, and then slowly returning back. 

He crosses himself and then glances over his shoulder. The boy is watching him, eyes glimmering in the dim light.

“If you think God listens to criminals, you’re even more crazy than I thought,” he mumbles.

“Keep your blasphemous thoughts to yourself,” Andrey says calmly.

The boy just shakes his head and turns his back to him.

~ ~ ~

The guard comes when the sun is already high, filling the cell with pale light.

“Thief, the major wants to see you,” he says.

“I’m not a thief!” the boy barks.

“And I don’t give a fuck, you come or I drag you out by your neck!”

The boy pouts, but gets up and walks to the door.

“I’ll see you later,” Andrey says.

“I doubt that,” the boy says. “Because they’ll let me go. I didn’t steal anything.”

“Oh, I forgot,” Andrey smirks. “Goodbye, then.”

The boy doesn’t answer, bickering with the guard all the way to the stairs. Andrey just shakes his head.

Mere half an hour later, the door screeches and the guard throws the boy back, apparently fed up with him already.

“I thought they were letting you go,” Andrey notes.

The boy gives him a bewildered look. He doesn’t even look mad. His bravado is completely gone. He looks scared out of his mind. “I… They… They said if I paid the man twenty rubles for the wood, there would be no trial, and they’d let me go.”

“And?” Andrey drawls.

“I don’t have twenty rubles!” Sascha yells. “I’ve never even seen twenty rubles together!”

Andrey laughs shortly. The wood of course wasn’t worth twenty rubles either. Whoever it belonged to just tried their luck. Unfortunately for them, the boy was poorer than they expected.

“And then they said I would stay here until the governor was back in town, and then I’d have trial…” the boy rambles on, and then starts to cry.

Andrey sighs and then gets up. Not like he’s grown fond of him, but he thinks the crashing down from his naive illusions is a bit too hard on him. Crouching down next to him, he lays a hand on his shoulder, and then gasps when the boy throws his arms around his neck and hides his face in the dirty fabric of Andrey’s shirt.

“They said the only reason why they didn’t torture me was that I confessed right away…” he sobs. “I didn’t even want to steal anything, what nonsense is this, are they all mad?”

“What’s your name?” Andrey asks.

The boy lifts his eyes to him, face red and wet, his lips shivering. “What?”

“What’s your name?”

“Sascha?” For some reason it sounds like a question, like he’s not even sure anymore, or like he’s asking why Andrey wants to know.

“Sascha, there is a book that says what is a crime and what isn’t,” Andrey says slowly, holding the boy’s gaze to make sure he’s listening to him. “And it’s hard to argue with a book. It doesn’t answer back.”

It takes Sascha a while to process his words. Then he covers his face with his hands and starts sobbing hysterically.

~ ~ ~

When the guard brings the food, Andrey grabs his portion of bread, then turns around and looks at Sascha, who’s curled up on the straw, facing the wall, and doesn’t seem to have noticed the guard at all. He takes the other piece of bread as well, and sits next to the boy.

“Eat,” he says.

“Leave me alone,” Sascha mumbles. “I want to die.”

Andrey rolls his eyes. “Stop this nonsense, you need to eat,” he says. “Come on.”

“What for?”

“Nothing that bad is happening to you yet,” Andrey says. “You have plenty of time for dying. Here. Eat.”

Sascha takes the bread from him hesitantly. Then he bites into it like the bread could bite him instead. In Andrey’s opinion, it’s not even that bad this time. It’s not moldy nor rock-hard, just a bit burnt. Probably something the local baker’s apprentice messed up.

Sascha wolfs the bread down. Andrey hands him the other piece. “Here.”

Sascha looks at him. “But… this is yours.”

“I ate yours yesterday,” Andrey says. “Take it.”

He drinks a bit of water from the jug the guard brought with the bread before handing it to Sascha as well.

“Better?” he asks.

“I still want to die,” Sascha mumbles.

“Trust me, you don’t,” Andrey says. “And someone would surely miss you."

“Nobody would miss me,” Sascha says and looks at him like Andrey is an idiot. “I don’t have anyone. And the man I used to work for didn’t even care about me enough to give me wood to keep myself warm at night. Which is why I took that damned wood, and ended up here.”

Andrey sighs.

“You… have someone?” Sascha asks in a small voice.

“Older sister, somewhere,” Andrey says. “She married a merchant, so they travel a lot. I haven’t seen her for years.”

He shuffles back to his place. Somehow he doesn’t know what’s made him feel the sudden surge of sadness, if realizing that the boy is alone in the world, or realizing that he himself isn’t.

“What’s your name?” Sascha asks. “You never told me.”

“You never asked,” Andrey says and looks at him. “I’m Andrey.”

Sascha cocks his head to the side. “Yeah,” he says. “It fits you.”

Andrey just laughs and shakes his head.

~ ~ ~

As days pass, Sascha stops speaking about injustice and wanting to die. Andrey isn’t sure if the stories of his miserable life are a good replacement, but at least Sascha sleeps at night now, having chosen Andrey’s evening prayer for his lullaby instead of insulting him.

On one Sunday, the guard unlocks the door and puts two buckets of water on the ground.

“Here,” he says and throws a simple shirt at each of them. “God forbid the governor would catch something from you two.”

“So… the governor is in town?” Sascha asks.

“If not already, then he’s on the way, and when he feels like judging the two of you, I won’t bring you in with all your fleas!” the guard says and throws a piece of soap at him before locking the door again.

They exchange worried glances. Then Sascha makes a few steps to the buckets, and pulls his torn shirt over his head. He splashes the water in his face a couple times and then turns to Andrey.

“Are you afraid of water or what?” he asks.

Andrey takes a deep breath, then he shakes his head and takes off his own shirt. His eyes roam over Sascha’s ribs.

“Come here,” Sascha says. “I’ll wash your hair.”

Andrey stops in his tracks. “What?”

“Your hair,” Sascha repeats, and his eyes are shining, like the small gift of water and soap has made his day and he forgot about his fears for a while. “I’ll wash it.”

Andrey doesn’t say anything when Sascha pours water over his head, measuring it carefully so that he would have enough to rinse the soap out afterwards. His hair is so dirty it’s not even oily anymore. Then Sascha’s fingers start rubbing circles in his scalp, making the soap foam, despite its poor quality.

“I hope I get it in your eyes,” he says. “I could finally make you cry.”

Andrey laughs. “You mustn’t cry here, never,” he says. “That’s a sure way to hell.”

Sascha pours water over his hair again, rinsing the soap out and gently squeezing the strands. Andrey puts on the new shirt. It’s stiff and scratchy, but also slightly warmer than his worn-out, ripped piece of cloth.

“Wash mine,” Sascha says, handing him the soap.

“Do I look like a barber to you?” Andrey mutters, but then he carefully pours water over Sascha’s hair.

“Damn, that’s cold!” Sascha yelps.

“Well, you’re not in a spa,” Andrey shrugs and rubs the soap over Sascha’s scalp. It feels softer than his own, and it still has lighter strands where sun bleached it during the long hours he spent out in the fields.

“It’s almost like a spa.”

When Andrey is done washing Sascha’s hair, Sascha shakes his head like a dog, making drops of icy water fly around. He laughs at Andrey, who still washes his old shirt with the rest of the water and soap. Andrey himself knows that it’s ridiculous, but somehow, he can’t part with it. It’s the last remnant of his old life that he will never get back.

Sascha suddenly reaches out and grabs a strand of Andrey’s hair, looking at it curiously.

“What are you doing?” Andrey frowns.

“Your hair,” Sascha says.

“What?”

“It’s beautiful,” Sascha smiles. “Such a strange color. Like… brass.”

“It is?”

Sascha looks at him like he’s a fool. “You don’t know?”

“No. I don’t remember when I last looked in the mirror. If ever.”

Sascha pouts. “Then you’re missing out,” he says.

Andrey chuckles. “I don’t think so.”

Sascha looks at him with the damn stubbornness that sometimes appears on his face. He only has these two sides to him, the stubborn one when nothing can change his mind, and the desperate one when he just gives up and wants to die.

“You’ve got blue eyes, grayish blue, like winter skies, but sometimes they look dark,” he says and touches Andrey’s face. “And freckles. You’ve got freckles. And sharp cheekbones.”

Andrey doesn’t say anything, because he doesn’t know what to say. Sascha is touching his face almost reverently, like he’s admiring a statue.

“You know, I’ve never felt like this,” he whispers. “Like I… belonged with someone. Even if it’s just that we are here together, and we don’t have anything else in common, it’s… the first time I have someone who’s not a complete stranger.”

Andrey takes a sharp breath. It’s even a bit painful, like his lungs want to steal that breath to keep him from saying what he has to say.

“Sascha… There’s something I have to tell you.”

“What?”

“I didn’t steal anything. I killed someone. And you should know because… when the governor comes and I have my trial, they will most likely put me to death.”

Sascha lifts his eyes to him. “What? But you said…”

“I shouldn’t have lied to you,” Andrey says. “But I didn’t want to frighten you.”

Sascha is still looking at him with wide eyes that are starting to fill with tears. “No,” he says and shakes his head before slamming his fist in Andrey’s chest. “No, no, no, you’re lying!”

“I wish I was,” Andrey sighs.

“No, you… you’d never…” Sascha sobs. “You fucking pray every night!”

Andrey frowns. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I… How could you…”

“Sascha,” Andrey says softly. “It’s not like I broke inside a house and murdered children in their sleep.”

Sascha isn’t sobbing anymore, he’s just crying quietly, like he’s finally accepted that Andrey is telling the truth. “Then what did you do?” he asks.

Andrey sighs and closes his eyes briefly. “It was… I got into an argument with someone, someone I considered a friend. He was drunk, it got out of hand, he lurched at me and I hit him. I hit him once. Just… really badly.”

Sascha’s eyes are now more scared than before. “But… but… that was an accident!”

“It was an accident just like you didn’t steal the wood,” Andrey smiles sadly.

Sascha scrambles to his feet, circling the cell a couple times. Andrey knows he would run if he could, he would run until he couldn’t run anymore, and then he would fall on the ground and cry. But here, he can only pace around like a caged tiger, and it makes it even worse.

“How can you be so calm?” he yells at Andrey. “They are going to kill you!”

“I know,” Andrey says. “That’s how. I know, and I’ve had enough time to come to terms with it.”

“With what, that you didn’t want to kill anyone, but they are going to - what…”

“Drown me, probably,” Andrey says.

Sascha opens his mouth to say something to that, but then, lost for words, he just throws his arms around Andrey’s neck and refuses to let go.

Later that night, when Andrey kneels for his evening prayer, there is a rustling sound in the other corner of the cell, and then Sascha kneels next to him without a word, taking his hand and looking at the starless sky.

~ ~ ~

The guards come for them the next morning.

The council room has recently been cleaned, there is even a tablecloth covering the long table, and fresh fir branches hanging over the beams. The governor is younger than Andrey expected, and he looks quite sure about himself. The major does the talking, and it’s clear as day that they are not supposed to say anything at all, not even in their own defense.

“This one stole wood,” the major says, looking at Sascha with a disgusted face. “Claimed he didn’t know it belonged to someone, which, if you allow me my opinion, could be only true if he were an idiot.” 

The governor shoots a look at Sascha like he wants to determine whether he is, or isn’t really an idiot.

“His first offense?” he asks.

“It seems.”

“And the wood was returned?”

“Yes,” the major says. “They caught him right away.”

The governor nods slowly. “Ten lashes, and exile him from the town. The less thieves you have here, the better.”

“I’m not…” Sascha starts, but catching Andrey’s glance, he closes his mouth.

“Take him outside,” the governor says. “What else do we have here?”

~ ~ ~

Sascha stands in the courtyard, shifting from one leg to another. There is snow on the ground, and his toes are slowly going numb. The two guards are waiting, leaning leisurely over the wall of a shed.

He knows that they said something in the room. It registers in his mind that something is about to happen to him, and that it’s going to hurt, but it’s like he couldn’t care less.

He looks up from his frozen feet when the door of the building screeches. Sascha looks at Andrey in confusion, at the chains on his wrists. Andrey turns to the guard and says something to him.

“But quick,” the guard says. “I don’t have all day.”

Andrey walks up to him slowly. His moves are strangely clumsy, and slow, like it’s not only the chains binding him.

“What…” Sascha whispers. “They’re not…”

“Killing me? No,” Andrey smiles sadly. “Worse.”

Sascha blinks in confusion. He can’t understand anything could be worse than death. “Worse? What’s worse?”

“Slavery,” Andrey says. “They’re sending me to some frontier town. Most likely, the tsar needs some ships built, or some stone broken for a new palace, who knows.” 

Sascha’s fingers wrap around Andrey’s bony wrists, moving the chains up, out of the way. Somehow, Andrey’s skin feels colder than the iron.

“I’ll find you,” he whispers.

“For your own sake, don’t,” Andrey says, and his voice shakes.

“No, I will!” Sascha says, the stubbornness coming out again. “Even if I have to run after you all the way.”

Andrey smiles. “You seem to have forgotten that you were to receive ten lashes,” he says. “I don’t think you’ll be fit for running.”

“You have no idea what I can do when I set my mind on it,” Sascha says.

“Then set your mind on surviving this, and having a good life,” Andrey says.

Sascha’s lips shiver.

“And don’t you dare to cry,” Andrey says, stumbling back when the guard pulls on his arm. “You hear me? Don’t you dare to cry!”

Sascha keeps looking at him, shaking with the tears and sobs he doesn’t want to let out, until someone’s hands land heavily on his shoulders.

“Let’s warm you up,” a voice says. “A farewell gift.”

“Ten of them,” someone else laughs.

Sascha goes with them, like he’s sleepwalking. Only the first lash brings him to his senses.

He doesn’t cry.

~ ~ ~

Cold wakes Sascha up before sunrise. For a moment, he can’t remember where he is, until he looks around the hay shed he had sneaked into last night when it got too dark for him to see the road under his feet.

His back is on fire, it sings in so many voices of pain that his vision gets blurry for a moment. He pushes himself up nonetheless, shaking the little pieces of straw out of his hair before carefully peeking out of the door.

Everything seems to be still asleep around. He sneaks out and heads to the main road. Once he looks forward at the seemingly endless road crossing the land like a snake, he feels a wave of despair washing over him. He doesn’t know how big the _tsardom_ is, he can only imagine that it’s big enough to swallow one Andrey like a hungry dragon.

But so far he’s on the only road that can be the right one, simply because there is no other one, and once it ends and he’s lost, he can always ask. People are curious, even more so when they see other people’s misery.

He starts down the road, careful of the frozen mud making it bumpy and slowing him down. The tsardom has no idea what he can do when he sets his mind on it.

Even kill the dragon.

**Author's Note:**

> *For the sake of this story, let’s pretend that the law book Sobornoye Ulozhenye never existed, because 17th century Russia really had no chill when it came to crime. So I sort of inspired myself, but in reality, both would be pretty much dead.
> 
> *Kosovorotka is a type of shirt that was worn by peasants.


End file.
